


What Waits

by Fuzzy_Cheese_Productions



Series: The Underverse [1]
Category: Original Work
Genre: POV First Person, Quinn Starr (OFC) - Freeform, Spoilers: The Underverse (Specifically Odd Jobs and The Charm City Saga), The Underverse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-13
Updated: 2015-07-13
Packaged: 2018-04-09 04:52:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4334576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fuzzy_Cheese_Productions/pseuds/Fuzzy_Cheese_Productions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“We must be willing to get rid of the life we planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”<br/>–Joseph Campbell</p>
            </blockquote>





	What Waits

**Author's Note:**

> **Author:** QuinnTalon aka. Kelly of Fuzzy Cheese Productions.  
>  **Fandom(s):**. The Underverse (Specifically Odd Jobs and The Charm City Saga)  
>  **Character(s):** Quinn. Various other supernatural entities.  
>  **Rating:** PG-13 (Mild Violence. Language.)  
>  **Warnings:** Mild Spoilers for Odd Jobs and The Charm City Saga.  
>  **Disclaimer:** Fuzzy Cheese Productions…Owns this. Holy Wow on a Stick.

When they come for me, the come in force.

 

There were four of them waiting for me, down an alley and twenty feet ahead.  Anyone with access to the lines of Fate would be able to read their power on them.  I’d felt them before I’d rounded the corner.

 

There was no one  about.  No one to see what was about to happen. Even if there had been, the human mind--the beautifully delicate mind of a mortal--would have reasoned it away as a trick of the light or a feeling of deja vu.  A tickle in the peripheral that forced you to look over your shoulder only to see nothing but fireflies.

 

I know there are four, only if I only see one.  At least, until they in unison step into their Capture-the-Apostate formation.  I know what they are. Who they are.  Who they work for.  The black of their not-uniforms and the clean, drone-like way they move.  

 

I used to move that way.  I used to believe every piece of the dogma the Circle whispered.  Once, I’d wanted to be one of these black beacons of authority and I’d wanted every piece of conformity that came with it.  

 

That changed when I saw what they’d done to someone innocent.  Someone who, before their experiments, hadn’t a sliver of darkness in his soul, and my world and sense of reality had crumbled.

 

It had taken time, but I’d rebuilt it.  Pulled myself up by my bootstraps and turned my loss into a gain.  Turned my power into activism, and formed my Not-So-Underground Underground Railroad, and smuggled those who knew The Truth away from The Lie.

 

“Quinn Starr of the Family Starr; You are hereby Bound by the Inquisition, Formally Charged with Sedition and Treason, and with Harboring and Fraternizing with Known Maleficar..”  It’s too dark for me to see his face, but his voice is far too young for this.  Far too young to be the head of a Kill Team, though I’ve known those amber eyes my entire life.  I saw them in every crystal ball and strand of fate attached to myself.  To the Fate of The Cause.  To my closest friends and allies.

 

I could run, but there’s no point.  I’ve known this day was coming my entire life.

 

I’ve known today was that day from the moment I woke this morning.

 

There were no good-byes to be said, because in my way I’ve already said them.  No one but me and my brother knew of this day.

 

I could run…

...But I won’t.

 

I have to go down fighting.  I have to send at least two of these so-young boys into the abyss before I can let them erase me.  Before my life becomes a footnote of The Cause.

 

I put my bag down, and pull my goggles down onto my eyes.

 

I see him. I see the emerald around his neck flare to life.  He’s a Life Mage, able to tap into the Living World with his very being in much the same way Lola does.  It’s a magic that was drilled into us as a healing and bright magic.  Life was Light and All-That-Was-Good.  

 

I know better.  I’ve seen what Life Mages were capable of.  

 

_ “The Magic itself has no purpose.  It is the Mage who decides it’s malevolence.” _

 

He hurls The World at me, and it burns as it finds it’s target.  Burns as it rages through me, and it’s an act of sheer willpower to not tense and shatter.  If he were going ot live beyond this night, he would be a force to be reckoned with.

 

Alas, it’s not to be.

 

Because I don’t tense.  Instead, I ride the wave of tearing pain, centering the burning into one hand.  The Chaos of my own magic melds with it, until it’s a blue-flame engulfing my right hand. My right arm.  Catching my eyes…

 

“You should be running.”

 

I hurl it back at him. At  them , and they scatter.  They weren’t expecting much of a fight from a half-trained apostate.  They’d underestimated me, and it’s always been my greatest strength.  I was never “The Best” or “The Brightest”.  I let them overlook me until that fateful day when The World had shown me it’s Truth.

 

The flames engulf one of them, and the white-hot diamond-burn of Order around her neck is strong, but no match for my Chaos.  The fire tears through her and she falls to her knees, screaming and clawing at her own clothing.  Apparently The Circle forgot to teach them to Stop-Drop-and-Roll.

 

There is something to be said for spending time around Mortal-Born Mages.

 

One down.  

One to go.

 

Someone grabs my arm, twisting it behind my back as I’m focused on the burning.  The screams will haunt me, but I can’t let it distract me.  For the Future to come, cetain events have to transpire tonight.

 

Two must die here. The one who grabs me will be my ‘Number Two’.

 

I throw my other arm back, elbowing him in the face. I pull power out of the Burning Girl, and focus it into the child behind me.  He’s uses my momentum to spin me, grasping both of my arms and shoving me against a wall.

 

His hamartia?  His pride.  Because he smiles at me from at least three inches higher.  From at least fifty pounds heavier of well-maintained muscle.  He’s confused for half a second before he realizes his mistake.  He’s got his hands on me, and I’ve channeled the Burning Fire onto myself.  I don’t burn.  It’s  my fire.

 

But he does.

 

He goes up like a motherfucking forest fire.  White-hot and just as loud as his charred compatriot.  It’s my last hurrah.  The binding of my magic happens as the boy who started this hisses his last breaths. It’s as if all of the oxygen is sucked out of the alley, and I fall to my knees trying to catch my breath in the sudden vaccuum.

 

I’m impressed by the cleverness.  Fire can not burn without fuel or oxygen, and someone in their little group has robbed me of one of them.  If I could breathe, I would congratulate him on his ingenuity.  On his quick thinking.  On his resourcefulness.

 

Hell, I may have even offered him a job.

 

“Clever boy…”  I wheeze, even as I’m dragged to my feet by another, strong arms holding me in place effortlessly.  Those bright blue eyes that will haunt me for the rest of my life, as short as I know that will be.  “..Clever, clever boy.”

 

He steps forward into the lighted shadow, and I catch a glimpse of boyish features and blank expression.  I wonder how often that pretty angular face breaks into a smile, and decide that it probably never does.   Besides, cleverness isn’t an indicator of independence, no matter how much I adore a man ten times as clever--as  ruthless \--as this one. 

 

“You are bound by law, Quinn Starr.

 

I let my eyes narrow.  “There is nothing lawful about this.”

 

He frowns, and I see something of a personality bleed into his eyes before I can’t see a thing, and I know as the world goes dark that I’ve seen the sky for the last time.


End file.
